All Over Albany

Items tagged with 'Union'

Union College announced Tuesday that its next president will be David R. Harris, a 48-year-old sociologist who's currently the provost at Tufts. He'll succeed Stephen Ainlay, who's set to leave the post at the end of the current academic year after 12 years in the role.

Harris's CV includes undergrad and PhD at Northwestern, academic and administrative positions at Cornell, and time spent working for the US Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama admin. Press release blurbage:

In his time at Tufts, Harris has been a transformational leader with an impressive record of achievement. Shortly after joining the administration, he led a year-long effort to create Tufts' first-ever, university-wide strategic plan. From that plan emerged many new initiatives, including 1 + 4, a program to energize civic renewal by providing students an opportunity to engage in a year of international or national service before starting at Tufts. The strategic plan also led to the creation of Bridge Professorships, which span two or more schools to advance research and teaching on complex issues.

At Tufts, Harris also established the new position of chief diversity officer and associate provost, and he launched Bridging Differences, an initiative to empower the Tufts community to develop the skills necessary to engage in informed and civil discussion around some of today's most challenging topics.

West is a scholar whose work has focused on race, gender, and class. He's now a professor of philosophy and Christian practice at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and professor emeritus at Princeton University. And he's popped up all over popular culture, from talk shows to spoken word hip hop to an appearance in two of the Matrix films. Recently he's been publicly supporting Bernie Sanders for president.

The talk at Union is Thursday, March 3 at 5 pm in the Nott Memorial. Note: "The talk is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and priority will be given to members of the campus community."

Referred to by many as the "Margaret Mead of digital culture," Professor Turkle has investigated the intersection of digital technology and human relationships from the early days of personal computers to our current world of robotics, artificial intelligence, social networking and mobile connectivity. Her New York Times best-seller, "Reclaiming Conversationâ„¢: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age" (Penguin Press, October 2015), focuses on the importance of conversation in digital cultures, including business and the professions. Her previous book, "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other" (Basic Books, 2011), was a featured talk at TED2012, describing technology's influence on relationships between friends, lovers, parents and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy and solitude.

If you do a quick scan through Turkle's Twitter feed, you'll quickly get a sense of the sorts of topics she's interested in: conversation, the way people use mobiles, dating apps, privacy, robots. Here's an Atlantic interview with Turkle from last fall about her recently published book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.

Turkle's talk is the keynote in Union College's Founders Day. It's at 1 pm on Thursday, February 25 in the Memorial Chapel. It's free and open to the public.

They organized an evening of "Frozen" fun--screening and movie-themed dinner--and called it "The Psychology of Frozen." There, they listened to the students' reactions and tried to gauge why they found the film so appealing.

While responses were predictably varied, one theme seemed to resonate: everyone could identify with Elsa. She wasn't your typical princess. She wasn't your typical Disney character. Born with magical powers that she couldn't quite control, she meant well but caused harm, both on a personal scale (hurting her sister, repeatedly) and a global one (cursing her kingdom, by mistake). She was flawed--actually flawed, in a way that resulted in real mistakes and real consequences. Everyone could interpret her in a unique way and find that the arc of her story applied directly to them. For some, it was about emotional repression; for others, about gender and identity; for others still, about broader social acceptance and depression. "The character identification is the driving force," says Wells, whose own research focusses on perception and the visual appeal of film. "It's why people tend to identify with that medium always--it allows them to be put in those roles and experiment through that." She recalls the sheer diversity of the students who joined the discussion: a mixture, split evenly between genders, of representatives of the L.G.B.T. community, artists, scientists. "Here they were, all so different, and they were talking about how it represents them, not ideally but realistically," she told me.

There's also some discussion about the always complicated business of princessification.

The Dutchmen will face #2 overall seed Boston College April 10 in Philadelphia. The game is scheduled for 5 pm on ESPN2. #1 seed Minnesota takes on North Dakota in the other semifinal.

Union's recent hockey success is remarkable given the size of the school. After the jump, a quick look at how Union stacks up in enrollment and athletics spending against its Frozen Four competitors...

Denk offers an innovative program connecting classical works with those influenced by jazz. In between classical works: Mozart's Sonata in F Major, K. 533/494, Schumann's Waldszenen, Op. 82, and Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata, Op. 53, Denk will perform a new work written for him by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau along with a series of rags by Bolcom, Hindemith, Stravinsky and others.

Jeremy Denk is a concert pianist enlivening the musical experience for amateurs and aficionados alike through his eloquence with notes and words. As a soloist and in concerti and chamber ensembles, Denk masterfully performs some of the most technically demanding works of iconic masters--Bach, Beethoven, Chopin--as well as compositions of storied twentieth-century artists--Ives and Ligeti--with virtuosic dexterity and imagination. Noted for his unexpected pairings of pieces in recital programs and recordings, he often draws out surprising themes and continuities between historically and stylistically disparate works. His live and recorded duets with violinist Joshua Bell, a longstanding tradition, are critically acclaimed and lauded for their extraordinary balance and original interpretation.

This exhibition features the portfolio, Flashpoints, by international photojournalist Gilles Peress, which includes work from the conflicts in Northern Ireland, Iran, Rwanda and Bosnia. Peress sees his work as "gathering evidence for history" rather than art, though the forensic aspect of his photography is a mere fraction of its meaing. Thirteen additional photojournalists are included, whose work ranges from the battlefield to the social sphere of everyday life.

The exhibit will be up through March 10. On February 10 there will be a talk from Alison Morley, chair of the photojournalism department at the International Center of Photography.

The Mandeville Gallery is open 10 am-6 pm Monday-Sunday. It's in the Nott Memorial (which itself is worth seeing). It's free and open to the public.

Kate Bolick -- the author of the much talked about/circulated/commented/shared "All the Single Ladies" article in The Atlantic a year ago -- is coming to Union College for talk in November.

In that Atlantic piece, Bolick examines the idea of what it means to be a single woman, the changing nature of the "marriage market," and ultimately argues for more flexible attitudes about the way people decide to arrange their lives. Here's a clip:

What my mother could envision was a future in which I made my own choices. I don't think either of us could have predicted what happens when you multiply that sense of agency by an entire generation.

But what transpired next lay well beyond the powers of everybody's imagination: as women have climbed ever higher, men have been falling behind. We've arrived at the top of the staircase, finally ready to start our lives, only to discover a cavernous room at the tail end of a party, most of the men gone already, some having never shown up--and those who remain are leering by the cheese table, or are, you know, the ones you don't want to go out with.

That's a lot, no matter what job you're doing. And given that the SUNY system has faced budget cuts recently, it's understandable that the figure would catch attention.

But is it too high? That's a hard question. And people are going to have different answers based on their own perspectives.

To get some context, we pulled data about presidential compensation at UAlbany, RPI, Union, Skidmore, St. Rose, Siena, and the Sage Colleges -- and broke it down to see how it compares across multiple categories.

One of the interesting things in a recent NYT package about student debt is an interactive listing that includes school-by-school breakdowns of the average student debt for each school.

We were a bit surprised by the numbers from Capital Region schools (above). Even though Skidmore and Union College both have expensive sticker prices (both locally and nationally), their average graduate debt figures were among the smallest in this area -- and they had the lowest percentage of grads carrying student debt.

Contrast that to St. Rose and UAlbany. CSR had the highest average graduate debt -- with 86 percent of its graduates carrying debt. And UAlbany, though having one of the lower debt numbers probably as a result of its relatively inexpensive tuition, had by far the highest debt-to-tuition ratio.

It's been a great season for Union. It's ranked #3 in the nation after going 24-7-7, and winning the ECAC tournament for the first time in school history. The Dutchmen are a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

The Syracuse men's basketball team beat Wisconsin last night in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament (remarkable because the Badgers apparently couldn't miss from behind the arc). The #1 seeded Orange next face #2 seed Ohio State on Saturday in the regional final for a trip to the Final Four. The game is at 7 pm on CBS.

RPI president Shirley Ann Jackson's salary is the 7th highest in the nation among private college presidents, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education's annual salary rankings. The Chronicle reports Jackson's 2009 total compensation was $1,771,877, up 7 percent from the year before.

The average professor at RPI gets almost $154k/year in compensation, according to the Chronicle -- giving RPI an 11.5/1 president to professor pay ratio. (A few quick comparisons: the ratio is 4.7/1 at MIT, and 3.7/1 at Cal Tech.)

Said RPI's VP of strategic communications and external relations to the TU about Jackson's salary: "[it is] a reflection of her extraordinary accomplishments, and of the desire of the Board of Trustees to have her continue the comprehensive transformation at Rensselaer."

Here's how local schools rank on the list for 2011-2012 (the list for 2010-2011):

Skidmore's ranking has dropped considerably over the last few years -- it was #5 in 2009. RPI has been headed the other direction -- it was ranked #62 in 2009.

Sarah Lawrence topped College Grotto's list this year at $59,170, followed by NYU ($56,787), Columbia ($56,310), Harvey Mudd ($55,998), and The New School ($55,890). Here's Forbes' recently-released list -- it also has Sarah Lawrence #1.

This exhibition contains 37 paintings from the Robert Lesser Collection of Pulp Fiction Art and is on loan from the New Britain Museum of American Art. ... The paintings, roughly 30" x 40", were done as covers to the "pulp fiction" genre of the 1930's and 1940's. The subject matter includes adventure, mystery, science fiction, war, and westerns. Tarzan and the Shadow are two protagonists that are well known today. ...

The influence of pulp fiction is vast, seen in the development of later forms of detective and science fiction literature, super heroes, and film noir. The hyper-American imagery was later taken up by the Pop Artists of the Sixties.

After buying his first painting of the Shadow Lesser says, "I began to realize, my God, for these little ten-cent pulps, they had magnificent oil paintings for the cover art. I was amazed how great some of it was, how well trained these artists were."

"Pulp Fiction Paintings" is on display until September 25. There are a few events associated with the exhibit, including movie marathons and a talk, "Pulp Fiction and the Modern Reader," by Skidmore's Janet Casey (September 15).

The Nott Memorial at Union College is itself a work of art. If the dramatic circular structure, slate dome, and large windows letting natural light pour in from all sides aren't enough, the second floor hosts the Mandeville Gallery. And the current exhibition is worth checking out.

"Of Weeds and Wildness: Nature in Black & White" brings together 17 nationally and internationally recognized artists working in a variety of media. Kara Jefts, the gallery's interim director, was kind enough to give me an impromptu tour, fielding a few questions about the exhibit itself and the Nott Memorial in general.

Check it out: prompted by last week's mention of the Rube Goldberg Challenge for high school students this past weekend at Union College, Sebastien stopped by to see the devices. Here's some video he shot:

And as we noted back then, a lot of the students that attend these schools don't actually pay full price. For example, Union says that 64 percent of its students get financial aid -- and the average individual total aid award is $25,400.

A list of schools a little farther out from the Capital Region that made the top 100 is after the jump.

Yet another lawsuit filed over the alleged conduct of Steven Raucci accuses the former Schenectady school district employee of cutting off the heat to a teacher's classroom after her husband -- who worked for Raucci -- indicated he might challenge Raucci for a union leadership position. [Daily Gazette]

He's a 30something-year-old sulcata tortoise. He keeps tabs on one of the biology labs at Union College.

Stella ended up at Union about five years ago when a guy called up the the bio department to ask if they were interested in a tortoise (they were). Stella could be at Union for a long time to come -- sulcatas can live to be more than 50 years old.

He -- yep, Stella is a guy -- now patrols his bio lab (a baby gate keeps him from wandering out into the hall), munching on hay and the occasional grape. He's become a bit of a celebrity -- campus visitors (for example, us) actually stop by to see him. We didn't get the sense that the fame had gone to his head.

For the most part, when students returned in the fall, they were so dazzled by the transformation of the cafeteria that they hardly noticed the missing trays. The renovated dining hall has three slate fireplaces and a half-dozen food stations, including a do-it-yourself griddle for eggs. Three of the chefs are graduates of the Culinary Institute of America, and all the pasta, granola and baked goods are made on site.

The focus of the piece is on Skidmore's status as, in NYT's words, "a pioneer in trayless dining." Apparently trayless cafeterias are popping up at colleges all around the country -- they reportedly reduce food waste and save water and energy.

Skidmore isn't the only school that's tried going trayless. Union has "Trayless Tuesdays" in its cafeteria (a quality dining establishment, as we recently learned firsthand). And according to RPInsider, RPI tried out the idea -- but it didn't go over well.

We saw Dean when he was at the Egg after the 2004 election. He was an engaging speaker -- informal and funny. (Alas, there was no screaming.)

Monday's event is free and open to the public. The press release says seating is limited and priority will be given to members of the campus community -- so you might want to show up a little early if you want to make sure you get a seat. Doors open at 6 pm and the doctor is in at 7.

According to a list compiled by a site called College Grotto (new to us, too), Skidmore and Union are among the 20 most expensive colleges in the nation. Skidmore's total cost weighs in at $49,266 per year (#13) and Union's at $48,552 (#19).

Of course, caveats do apply. At many schools -- and we're guessing this includes Skidmore and Union -- very few students pay full price. But even at a discount, that's still some serious coin. Just for perspective, the median household income in the US is $50,233, according to the census bureau.

The final tally on the state budget cuts made by the Legislature for this year: $427 million. Combined with the $630 million already cut by David Paterson, the state budget is now $120.9 billion -- that's about $1 billion from where it started. [TU]

The Troy City Council has approved the plan to lease the Verizon Building as a replacement city hall (the current city hall is slated to be torn down for a waterfront park). Troy could be moving its offices by the end of the year, pending a study of how its new digs should be arranged. [TU] [Troy Record]

Intellectuals and academics are just assumed to have some background knowledge of the arts, and not knowing those things can count against you. Ignorance of math and science is no obstacle, though. I have seen tenured professors of the humanities say -- in public faculty discussions, no less -- "I'm just no good at math," without a trace of shame. There is absolutely no expectation that Intellectuals know even basic math.

But, wait, it gets worse! Not only are they innumerate, they're snobby and innumerate!

As much as three-and-a-half inches of rain have dropped on parts of the Capital Region over the last day and a half. Schenectady County has declared a state of emergency because of flooding. High water closed the Thruway between exit 25 and 26 (the 890 exits) for a few hours. [Daily Gazette]

An 18-year-old has been charged with attempted murder after police say he fired shots yesterday at the intersection of Union Avenue and Union Street in Schenectady -- just outside the gate to Union College. [Daily Gazette]

The Saratoga Springs police department has been accused of "cruel and inhuman" treatment after it allegedly left a guy handcuffed to a ring in the holding area for eight hours. The Saratoga police haven't able to use their holding cells since last October because of renovation work. [TU]

After replacing a water fountain they'd vowed never to repair again because it had been broken so many times, Schenectady parks officials have been amazed to see it's gone undamaged for a whole month. Thirsty children and basketball players rejoice. [Daily Gazette]

An official at the state Department of Health has billed the agency for more than $3000 in cab rides that she never actually took, according to the state's Inspector General Office. Apparently the official been driving herself to the train station and then filing an expense report for a taxi. [TU]

After seeing the post this morning about stopping the never-ending barrage of phone books (OK, we exaggerate... a little), a friend of AOA sent along this pic from Union's campus center today. Yep, those are phone books -- stacked in piles taller than that guy.

And, really, this makes sense. When you think of a demographic that would immediately turn to a phone book for information, you gotta think college students.

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